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Was it EA that had their forum and DRM systems linked in such a way that getting banned could also lock you out of content you had purchased, or was that another company? I vaguely recall it being a thing a while back.

While I do want a Simcity game, as SimCity 4 is 9 years old at this point, I can't see this new product as a Simcity game. There is no local saves. There are preset map sizes (don't mind that that much), but there is a problem here. The player is not able to edit the land. I can't level a mountain to make way for a road. I can't build a system of streams and lakes. They want players to view making a city a puzzle that also takes into account terrain and wondering how to build a road around that mountain. They want the toy (not a game by Will Wright's point of view) to play with the players instead of letting the players play freely with it. Not everyone wants their cities to be compared to the works of others.

At this rate, I doubt it will have any fun cheat codes as was a staple of the series.

The latest iteration of Sim City, and Civ V for that matter before it, feel like re-interpretations of the games on which they are based. After the designers hear a rough description of what the game is they create it based on a completely different set of rules and expectations than the original game used.

To be fair... This is sort of inevitable with the Civ and SimCity franchises...

There has been a ton of Civ games, and pretty much all of them have been good. Yes, some were better, some were worse, but all of them were good. So what can you really do to improve it, outside of graphics? Why would I ever move beyond FreeCiv or Civ 4? Civ has pretty much covered everything now, and the only thing I really want is the Near Future stuff that was in Call To Power, along with the Religion stuff in Civ 4 and Civ 5 Gods and Kings.

SimCity is worse... How exactly do you make a better version of SimCity 4?

These are OLD franchises, probably among the oldest, if not they oldest gaming franchises that are still being made. Civ came out in 1991, and SimCity in 1989. I still have the original disk for the C64 version.

The always on bit does suck, though. And makes me mad, I would love to play some SimCity, but sadly SimCity 4 doesn't modern hardware/software, and all the clones are pretty bad or boring (CitiesXL, almost good.). I will probably still buy it, though I will grumble the whole time.

SimCity is worse... How exactly do you make a better version of SimCity 4?

You take your hints from the mod community, which did some awesome things with SC4 in terms of expanding road building, architecture, etc. You combine that with the new developments in automata simulation (everything in the new SimCity is a fully-simulated automaton), and you leverage increased computing power for a more accurate experience.

Instead, the new SimCity *reduces* player flexibility in these areas. You can build dirt roads up through avenues, but that's it. There are no highways in the city; t

That was always the endearing thing about the Civ games, I love them in spite of themselves. They always feel "kludgy". I think it might because they are pretty complicated, and they try to shove as much stuff under the hood (its a civ simulation, its a tabletop wargame, its educational, its a resource management game, its a social simulator, its turn based strategy...) as humanly possible. You generally have to fight with the interface for an hour or so, then you get sucked into a 10 hour gaming session

Did you miss the point where I'm going to pick it up in a bargain bin, or Steam Sale? I'm not going to pirate it, and I'm not going to boycott it. Boycotts mean zero sales, which can be confused for zero demand. Piracy just makes you an entitled ass waving around post hoc excuses for your behavior. I'll wait until its $20, and then grab it. Depending on the reviews, of course. If they are bad (which it seems like they might be), then I won't grab it.

Yep, I saw the original story saying that, I stopped reading about the game. I mess about with their iOS Simpsons game and I get connection failures way too often to deal with a game that will only let me play when I can see their failservers.

Worse of course, this is EA, they retire online services for games as soon as a year after it comes out. In this case, that means "retiring" the entire game.

You'd never guess to look at it, but the most hardware-taxing game I've played in years has been Minecraft.

Minecraft seems ok, even on my underpowered server (though it does peg that CPU occasionally). Dwarf Fortress, however... Get 200 dwarves, all their pets, and livestock, then break into hell while a siege is going on. Easily goes from real-time to turn-based. And none of it is graphics processing.

If we weren't moving in the exact opposing way I would say you have a point. Trying to concentrate memory, processing power and bandwidth in servers is a great recipe to failure. The cost of these resources and the logistic problems associated do not escalate linearly.

The assumption the companies have is that everyone now has an always-on connection

Not exactly. These people are smart enough to make incredibly complex games so they are aware that not everyone in the world has a constant connection...they just don't care. The majority of their potential customers have an internet connection so they are willing to piss off the minority who don't for the sake of better DRM. And the number of people who actually have the willpower and desire to boycott DRM on principle is smaller yet, albeit vocal. It's a calculated business decision to deliberately aliena

And ya know what? despite what so many have written poo pooing the idea of a boycott "poo poo they never work poo poo" the fact that EA is on the selling block along with Activision's parent company looking to restructure tells me that boycotts DO work, they just take awhile to be fully felt.

And if nothing else at the very least you aren't paying to be treated like shit. I refuse to buy any game that has always online DRM and make it clear to the company whose product I'm avoiding not only WHY I'm avoiding them but what competitor got the money earmarked for them. When D3 came out with always online DRM I wrote Blizzard a nice letter telling them that despite buying both of the previous products several times (for myself and for family/friends) this time I would be giving my money to Torchlight II instead which I bought several copies of. While ultimately nobody in a position of power may read my letter at least they know where several sales went and if enough people do the same they can certainly feel it on their bottom line.

Ultimately even if the corp doesn't hear us we have to make sure the Internet media hears us, so that the corps can't use that old scapegoat piracy as an excuse to demand more draconian copyright laws like DMCA. As it is now if we do not speak up some PHB will be trotting out a PPT and while pointing at the numbers say "If you see here we sold X number of our previous product and our focus groups say X+Y play games of that genre today so the fact that we didn't sell X+Y just proves its those dirty pirates".

But I make it clear on any discussion of the game/s I'm boycotting that neither me nor my family will have this product as long as its anti-consumer, we won't buy it, download it, it won't be allowed in our home. So make your voice heard, speak up and let the world know when you refuse to buy a game because of shitty practices and no pirating it either, that just gives them more ammo to use against us.

Steam might play in offline mode. More often than not this is not the case. Believe me, I used to have a very bad internet connection and the times I was not able to play anything from my Steam account when the connection was down and Schteam was telling me to log in far outweighted the times when it happily remembered that I had played just one day before.
Steam is not nearly as evil as EA, but it still has an intrusive and often obnoxious DRM (Along with an atrocious EULA).

I have a few Fallouts and some others, and I've never had anything not play just fine when it was in offlline mode. Seems like you were trying to play in online mode when offline. And yes, I've had trouble switching to offline mode from online mode when actually offline, but that wasn't the issue in question. You can go online to get a game, then go offline and never go online again.

If you did that, what games did you find that didn't work when you went into offline mode while properly online?

Update: 01/29 18:00 GMT by S : The player's ban has been lifted, and it seems to have happened for an unrelated issue anyway.

Personally, if I had been EA I would have prevented the player from participating in any future *closed* betas (and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they tried to do in this case). Clearly, that player knew he was in a "closed beta", he mentioned that fact twice at least, but apparently he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of that word "closed".

In a closed beta, the feedback you provide stays private. That's the entire point of a beta being closed. Either you email the company directly, or you post in a private forum (designated only for closed beta players), but you do not post your feedback in their public forum.

Sheesh!! The standard is becoming so high, even that word beta doesn't seem to mean anything anymore.

If this was the most recent beta over the weekend, it wasn't a *real* beta, it was a preview weekend to bump up pre-orders that just happened to be called a beta test. You could only play for an hour at a time, probably half the content wasn't there, and every time the game ended, Origin would open the SimCity pre-order page in the store and it would open the pre-order page in your browser as well. There was no *required* post-game reporting, feedback or bug reports.

I wouldn't go that far. They have a bug in their system that causes people who opted out of email communication to instead get banned. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence that EA knows what they're doing. Regardless of whether the ban was intentional, it's reasons like this that they have such a shitty reputation.

That's moronic. The point of forums is for people to talk about your game. Sometimes, the things they say will be stupid. That's what happens when people talk. Ban everyone with an incorrect or unjustified point and you'll have a pretty empty forum.

And I have no reason to think the gameplay of this latest iteration is bad. But I'm never going to buy it. Ever. I don't care if that doesn't influence EA to stop being terrible, but all I can ever do is not buy their stuff.

I think it would send the strongest message if they could see the following:

- sales rates go up when games have less DRM- piracy goes up when games have more DRM independent of sales rate- EA sales would increase if EA stops being assholes- EA does not see any of this because EA's head is in its ass

For certain types of DRM, I would agree with you. For instance, if you're some random company that's developing a city building game and your users are unable to login for THREE HOURS and require an ALWAYS ONLINE connection for an OBVIOUSLY OFFLINE game, I think you have an argument that it's going to hurt sales. A lot.

On the other hand, DRM does have a positive impact on sales when implemented reasonably. For a well written article on how it helps, see here:
http://www.windowsusers.org/piracy.html [windowsusers.org]

If you get a better gameplay experience from pirating software instead of buying it (as is the case here) it just shows how horribly broken the retail version is. That's the sign of poor management and terribly implemented DRM.

Why would the product not be worth pirating? If it's a good game other than the always-online side, why pretend that it isn't? If you want to send a message to a company, make it accurate. Slinging mud at every aspect of a game, when it's just the DRM that's a problem, will not get DRM issues addressed.

I never like it when people suggest pirating software as a form of protest, if you think the DRM is too intrusive, don't buy the game at all. For the bad car analogy, Let's say you don't like On-Star because you think its too intrusive. You see a car you like, but it only comes with On-Star. So to protest On-Star you steal a car. That's not protesting it's an excuse to steal.

If you must play the game, buy it, feel guilty about not sticking to your morals, then attempt to forgive yourself by donating to the EFF or something.

Nope. I'd rather that people steal than support systematic oppression. The natural preference is for neither(as I indicated), but I have a much stronger disdain for the carefully planned and meticulous evil that corporate America is involved in.

Simcity is one of the few video games that I played and bought. They lost me when they required media to play the game. I don't pirate games, I buy then and play them. When you inconvenience me and treat me like a criminal, I don't buy them anymore.

I've bought the previous 3 Simcity games because I love the casual experimenting I can do with it, but when I first heard about the always online requirement I decide not to buy it, nor get a "liberated" copy.
I've bought games while running the pirated versions so I'd not be bothered by always use CD in tray, etc., but something like that I find less offensive than EA's scheme.

It's a shame that Simcity 4 will probably be the last version I'll play...

If you must play a SimCity-style game, consider the alternatives like Lincity [wikipedia.org], OpenCity [wikipedia.org], or Micropolis. [wikipedia.org] And let EA know why you're not going to buy their game.

I have always in the past bought and paid for the Simcity series. It was a fun game to me and worth rewarding them with the encouragement to make new and better versions. However, even though I bought the game, I still downloaded the No CD crack. I hate having to switch discs in and out of the tray every time I want to play something different.
With this latest version, I will be waiting for the No CD crack AND the offline play crack. With the way the game is setup, it may not even be possible for there to

Where is the link to the actual article? All this posting is, is a link to EA's website and a bunch of photo-hosting site pictures. Has the user actually engaged EA's customer support over email to appeal the ban? Would like if there was an actual story, because as it currently stands, this seems to be just one person posting anecdotal information that is focused on a single person, not a widespread group.

I was an avid Diablo and Diablo II player. Same with Starcraft. These games gave me endless hours of enjoyment in some cases decades after release. I have not and will not purchase either Starcraft II or Diablo III. I am a 'lost sale' because of the WAR on gamers by the studios. Any game I purchase, in a store or otherwise, that I can't play at my leisure now or at any time in the future because the creator or owner of the license shuts down a server, or stops supporting the game will not be in my inventory.

Unfortunately you're a minority because game sales have never been so high. I 100% agree with you that DRM is bad since it doesn't bring any benefits to the single player experience. I think game companies should continu providing good multiplayer experiences in hopes that drives piracy down.

This setup is the stupidest thing to come down the pike in a long time.
I can understand having the DRM to be able to play online. What I don't understand is why there is not an offline mode that does not allow you to take advantage of all the online only features and who's gameplay doesn't affect the online version.
And the article shows just how far they have gone into looney land - no constructive feedback allowed.
This will be literally the first Sim City I will not own. I have bought literally every version of it over the years including the original Sim City.

That's the justification that EA uses to explain why they need the DRM. In other words, that's them explaining why the DRM is actually a feature instead of a hindrance. There's no technical reason why a player shouldn't be allowed to play offline and not be part of the online community.

Feedback is feedback.. the feedback I read, did not warrant getting banned. Worse, it was constructive in many ways. Finally, this is a paying customer. If this is how EA will now do business, consider me warned, I'm not buying their wares.
I think it should be illegal to stop a paying customer from being able to provide feedback, especially since this customer is trying to have access to a product which he paid to used in the first place.

I am ever so close to abandoning video games as a hobby because of shit like this.

I've got a nice collection of board games and they are so much fun to play with a group of friends over some drinks and pizza. When I contrast that experience with the racist, homophobic insults I may encounter on XBOX live and other crap like this DRM, its getting harder and harder to justify that $60 video game.

As a programmer by day for a long time now, there is NO functional need for always online DRM for most game types. It benefits me, the consumer,(cough) I mean CITIZEN, in no way whatsoever. They know it, I know it, and yet they want me to buy the shit they are shoveling at me.

With these types of citizen abuse occurring in the gaming industry I hope it tanks. Not that I want to see people lose their jobs, but I want the business model to change.

The future, in my humble opinion, lies with the indie market. Look at games like FTL and Hotline Miami. Available to purchase without DRM, probably pirated to hell and back, and yet those small 1-2 man teams are each now probably millionaires. And they deserve it. Does EA deserve even a single penny for their anti-citizen activities? One of the tenets of capitalism is ownership of private property. With each new AAA game released, I own less and less of it. Fuck you EA, you are anti-capitalist and you are part of the reason why citizen rights are eroding.

The EA developers working on this did a Q&A [reddit.com] last month. Needless to say, the responses mentioned DRM quite a bit... this person summed a lot of them up nicely [reddit.com]. Those are responses only from the Q&A, and he only stopped because Reddit doesn't allow longer comments.

Then again, where I live, 60 euro buys you the 'limited edition', which doesn't even include all the content available at launch. I'm not sure if there will be a demo, and reviews are on and off, so what exactly am I supposed to use for judging if it's worth 60 euro? As much as they see it as a Beta themselves, for lots of people this was effectively a commercial demo. I'm sure they can fix the network problems, but in terms of gameplay I doubt they

Don't buy an EA game. Now, I would suggest buying it and then playing the cracked version instead, however that doesn't send the message to EA that they need to hear. So my best advice is just to stay away from EA.

I just heard an NPR story incredibly similar to this just this morning except it was the Chinese Communist Party suppressing all dissenting opinions and anything negative about them. Get ready for an epic level pushback/Streisand effect from this. It's already on Slashdot so really you don't have to "get ready" you get to "get popcorn" lol.

It turns out however, that EA is having really bad technical issues and managed to accidentally ban several users. The cause, they credit, is something to do with the email opt-out. (Which explains why I did not receive information regarding the ban)

About mid-day yesterday, I was banned from EA's Answer HQ[2] for, what I thought, was constructive criticism.It turns out however, that EA is having really bad technical issues and managed to accidentally ban several users[3] . The cause, they credit, is something to do with the email opt-out. (Which explains why I did not receive information regarding the ban)EA's representative did, however, issue an apology to me and I felt it only fair I set things right. (And give him credit for being an awesome guy in a place where he would normally be considered a dick)I received a message earlier today (here on reddit) from Chris Deum[4] , the guy who heads up EA's Answer HQ, apologizing for the glitch. The message is below.Hi Puppier,I made a post in reply on both imgur and your reddit post, but I just wanted you to know that we've lifted your ban on AHQ. As you know, the system is sending out a lot of emails and it looks like you opted out of receiving mails from us, which for some reason is banning users. There's a few posts on it, for example here http://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Problems/Problem-with-Answer-HQ-banned-because-I-tried-to-stop-getting/m-p/419214/highlight/true#M1430[5] . It's not the biggest thread, but it's the first I could get to.The team is working to fix the bug, but in the interim I actually have one member sitting scanning our logs for anyone that opts out, so we can unban them as quickly as possible.Apologies again - as you mentioned. There's a lot of similar feedback to yours that hasn't been removed from the forums and the authors banned.Feel free to give me a shout with any other feedback you have. I'll personally make sure it gets to the right people to make up for the annoyance.Cheers,Chris.I finally did get SimCity to play and IMO it looks as if it will be a fun game. Although they still need to consider their always online policy, I believe that this game is looking out to be good. Thanks for all the support though and bringing this to the attention of EA!TL; DR EA fixes false ban, EA sucks less.

Sometimes I buy them even if I don't want to play them (seriously). I think I bought a Humble Bundle last year that I still haven't even looked at yet. Hell, I'm not even a gamer. But I'll spend money on non-DRM software just to encourage more of it.

You bought a program that you presumably knew included this DRM. You gave the company the permission to deny you access to what you paid good money for. They did that. It was certain that they would eventually, they just did it sooner than you may have expected. Have you learned anything in general about buying games encumbered with DRM (including Steam) or is your learning limited to EA and Sim City (which they already have your money for anyway)?

Just how difficult is it to create your own server for these games? Are they in the habit of encrypting or using proprietary compression schemes?

Being a software engineer I'm used to writing communications and products from a requirements document and datasheets, wondering how difficult it would be to reverse-engineer the communications protocol and blindly write what's happening on the server...

I too am a long time SimCity fan who will not buy this game because of the DRM.

Perhaps I should send a letter letting EA know that I voted with my wallet. See, that's a problem with "voting with your wallet" in that there's really no way to tell what someone voted with their wallet for/against. If the game sells badly because people voted with their wallets against always-on DRM, it's more likely that the higher-ups at EA conclude "There isn't a big enough market for city simulation games. Let's just not greenlight any such future games, and focus on Medal of Madden XXVI!"

You could send an email, but realistically, those things will never really be read. An actual paper letter though; that's something someone *will* look at.

The first mistake was keeping DRM legal. There should be standards of use for all consumer-grade copyrighted products, and letting companies decide is fundamentally unhealthy for a free-market economy. Any variations on such a standard license should require a physical contract signed by both parties.

"We were stress-testing our beta servers so shut your mouth bitch" as a reply to that post probably would not have gotten EA any bad publicity. Deleting that post would probably never be noticed. It sounds like the forum team is due for a shareholder mandated witch hunt.

Unfortunately for folks, this means fans of the game have to give EA the middle finger and pirate it, or simply not buy the game, but at least they've finally released a new version of the game after years.

If they're using the most basic of authorization schemes, yes. However, their implementation is stateful - the saved games are stored server-side, so your "responder" would have to implement at least partially the feature-set implemented by EAs servers.

It's probably not quite as complex as implementing a "responder" for an MMO, but the featureset is definitely trending in that direction with cross-city interactivity.

We forgot people can take screenshots of things and spread them around the internet. This issue was caused by clueless middle managers telling us to quiet down the negative posts by our usual means of censoring: ban and purge. Now that we've been called out loudly and our shareholders will most certainly notice, our AHQ Staff members have begun to pretend to care and have restored lost access to affected users.